Saturday, November 02, 2013

Hunt loses appeal on Lewisham Hospital

THE
SAVE Lewisham Hospital campaign was jubilant last Tuesday as it announced
another court victory in its battle to defeat Government plans to close the
maternity and Accident and Emergency units at Lewisham as part of a plan to
rescue a neighbouring NHS trust that had become bankrupt.

The
campaign, which has gained massive local support and held two very big local
marches in November 2012 and January 2013, fought for a judicial review of
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s decision and won it in July this year. The
decision to close parts of Lewisham Hospital was declared unlawful.

The
Department of Health appealed against this ruling but last Tuesday it lost that
appeal.

The
campaign said: “We won our Judicial Review in July 2013, where the Government’s
decision to close Lewisham Hospital was ruled to be unlawful.

“We
were confident that the Government would lose their appeal on this decision
because they were using emergency legislation in an undemocratic way to close
Lewisham Hospital – a [good] hospital – without any consultation, and without
any evidence to justify it.

“Today
this appeal has been denied – we have won our campaign to save Lewisham
Hospital.

“It’s
outrageous and undemocratic that the Government are now planning to change the
law to allow them to do exactly the same thing they have been found guilty of
in otherNHS Trusts across the UK. If
they pass that legislation in the House of Commons, the whole of the NHS will
be at risk.”

The
Save Lewisham Hospital campaign is now committed to helping other campaigns to
fight this taking place across our NHS.